Can minor modes be enabled/disabled on a per-window basis? If not, I think
this doesn't solve the problem.

-Steven


On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 12:03 PM, Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> wrote:

> Steven Degutis <sbdegutis@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Or, we could have it reversed. We could only have an overlay on the
> current
> > buffer at any given time, and give it the window of (selected-window),
> and
> > keep updating these any time you change buffers or windows. This would
> > successfully "differentiate" the current window from every other window
> and
> > allow you to style it differently. But it has the problem of being the
> > exact inverse of the original goal, which is to dim other windows. It
> would
> > be more like `auto-prominentize-current-window`.
> >
> > The problem would then be that you now need to make the current buffer
> look
> > different than the default face. But by definition, the default face is
> > *exactly* what you want to be editing in.
> >
> > So one hacky way to solve this is to somehow "switch out" the default
> face
> > with the one you want to be considered "dimmed", and give the
> > current-window-overlay the face that was originally your "default face".
> >
> > This seems like it *could* work, but it's terrifying. Absolutely
> > terrifying. I don't know if I'm qualified for this task, especially
> since I
> > barely know elisp.
>
> This is the task of a global minor mode. As you probably know, minor
> modes can be activated and deactivated at whim. On activation, the minor
> mode stores the default background and changes it for the "dimmed" one.
> Then applies an overlay to the buffer in the active window, assigning
> the `window' property. When the user deactivates the minor mode, the
> previous default background is recovered.
>
> There are details like what happens if the user changes the default
> background while the minor mode is activated and dealing with the fact
> that the default background is per-frame.
>
>
>